Sermon Text: Matthew 21:9-11
Before his arrival at Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday, Jesus – who was known to be a descendant of the royal family of Israel – had also developed a reputation as an awe-inspiring wonder-worker. He had been very compassionate and generous in performing miracles for needy people.
The hungry had been fed. The lame had been made to walk. The blind had been given their sight. The demonically possessed had been delivered. And even the dead had been brought back to life.
So, when the people of Jerusalem learned that Jesus was coming to their city, the reaction was what we would expect. “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Jesus was indeed coming “in the name of the Lord,” and they were quite excited about it! The crowds knew that the power of the Lord had been working through him for the benefit of many people. And now that he was coming to Jerusalem, they expected that this divine power would be manifested also for their benefit.
Those with political and patriotic inclinations expected Jesus to overthrow the Roman occupation. Those with a more religious orientation hoped for a purge of the corrupt temple leadership. Those with more practical and mundane concerns were looking forward to the healing of their diseases, and the filling of their stomachs.
They thought that Jesus was the Messiah. And they thought that these were the kind of things the Messiah would do – “in the name of the Lord.” But in just a few days, they realized that they were not going to get what they wanted from Jesus.
They had welcomed him with rejoicing. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” But now they were deeply disappointed. Where was the divine, miracle-working power they had heard about?
And when their disappointment turned to anger, they turned on him. Before the week was through, some of the people who had welcomed Jesus with unbridled enthusiasm on Palm Sunday, may very well have been among those who called for his crucifixion at his trial, and who taunted him while he hung on the cross.
Jesus had not done what they expected. Jesus had not given them what they wanted. They no longer believed that he was the Messiah. They no longer believed that he had come “in the name of the Lord.”
A key error that they had made, was in their interpretation of what it would mean for the Messiah to come “in the name of the Lord.”
Jesus was not coming only in the power of the Lord so that he would be able to do everything they wanted him to do for them. Rather, coming “in the name of the Lord” meant coming for the purposes of the Lord – to accomplish what the Lord wanted done.
The people of Jerusalem did not have the right to set God’s agenda. God, from all eternity, had set the agenda for what his Son in human flesh would accomplish in Jerusalem that week.
Jesus had indeed come “in the name of the Lord.” He had come to procure for the people of Jerusalem, and for all humanity, what they truly needed, and not necessarily what they wanted.
He himself had said it in this way: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
He had also said: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jesus had not come to give to the people an assortment of miraculous “bobbles” and “trinkets,” for their life in this world. He had come to take away from their hearts their misguided reliance on the things of this world.
He had come to bestow upon them, through repentance and faith, a whole new life; and citizenship in a new world, and a new heavenly kingdom.
They didn’t understand this. But he came anyway, “in the name of the Lord,” to accomplish this for them. And for us.
Does Jesus come to you – today – “in the name of the Lord?” And if so, what does that mean?
We are all willing to pray to Christ in a time of need, to ask him for a certain blessing that we desire, or for success in a certain endeavor. When we have identified something that we want, and that we think he can give to us, we don’t hesitate to ask him to come to us – “in the name of the Lord,” and with the Lord’s power – to help us.
And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. But there is a problem, if that’s the full extent of how and when we desire and recognize the coming of Christ into our lives.
We should welcome him, and say “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” also when he comes into our lives to accomplish God’s purposes. In fact, that is chiefly when we should welcome him. And God’s purposes for sending his Son into our lives are often quite a bit different from the purposes for which we may be quick to invite him. Listen to what the Lord says in the Book of Deuteronomy:
“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
Would you ordinarily be inclined to invite Jesus to come “in the name of the Lord” to wound you, and to kill you? Probably not.
But when he comes into your life “in the name of the Lord” – that is, to accomplish the Lord’s purposes – that’s what he comes to do: not literal homicide, of course; but something like it in the realm of heart, mind, and conscience.
With the severe judgments of his law, he attacks all the pretensions and pride of your old nature. He attacks your idolatrous reliance on anything other than him and his Word, for salvation. And he humbles you.
God’s Son comes, as Scripture says, to wound and to kill. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
But Jesus also comes to heal and to make alive! After he has humbled you, his forgiving and restoring grace immediately lifts you up to the heights of his mercy.
He knows that your old sinful nature is always turning on him and rejecting him, just as the crowds of Jerusalem turned on him and rejected him. But he still loves you – just as he still loved them, and came to them.
And so he comes into your life, to accomplish the purposes for which his Father in heaven sent him. He creates in you a new nature.
He comes to heal your soul, and to make you truly alive by the indwelling of his Spirit, who is the Lord, and the giver of life. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
We are told in Psalm 111 that the Lord “sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever.”
Through your baptism into Christ, you are now among the people of God. In Christ, God has sent redemption to you.
And the covenant that God establishes with his church is an eternal covenant. God will forgive your sins when your heart is turned toward him because in the death and resurrection of Christ, he has already turned his heart toward you.
To the Colossians, Paul writes that in Christ
“You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, …having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.”
In a few minutes, Jesus will come to you “in the name of the Lord” yet again, and in a very special way. The church has always recognized an intimate connection between Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, to offer himself as the atoning sacrifice for human sin; and his coming in the special sacrament of the new covenant here and now, to distribute to communicants the blessings and benefits of that sacrifice.
That’s why – as we welcome him into our midst today in his Holy Supper – we join in the song of the people of Jerusalem: “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Jesus’ body and blood, which were once and for all time given up to God on the cross, are now repeatedly given out to us at the altar, for our forgiveness, life, and salvation.
We do rejoice on this Palm Sunday, and sing “Hosanna in the highest,” as we remember Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem: to die and rise again for humanity’s salvation. In the words of St. John’s First Epistle, “we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”
And we rejoice on this Palm Sunday – and on every Lord’s Day – and sing “Hosanna in the highest,” as we in his Supper receive our crucified and risen Savior, in accordance with the Lord’s saving purpose for each of us. As Jesus says in the Gospel of John:
“Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
In a few minutes, when those of you who are communicants leave your pew to come forward for this sacrament, also leave behind you – in heart, mind, and conscience – whatever earthly agenda for God in your life you have devised. Submit yourself instead to his agenda for you, and to what he wants to do for your eternal benefit.
And remember what God says through the Prophet Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
When Jesus “comes in the name of the Lord,” to fulfill the will of his heavenly Father for you, he comes only for good. Even if he comes to do something you don’t expect, it is a good unexpected thing that he does.
He comes indeed to give you a future: an eternal future as a redeemed and justified citizen of God’s kingdom. He comes indeed to give you a hope: an everlasting hope as a forgiven and adopted child in God’s family.
Jesus comes to us, not to satisfy our worldly desires, as we define them; but to fulfill our true spiritual needs, as the Lord defines them. We rejoice in his coming among us. And we sing: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Amen.